MOSCOW, November 28 (RAPSI) – A prosecutor has asked the Moscow District Military Court to sentence former and acting officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) charged with taking a 5-million-ruble bribe (about $85,000) from Turkish firm Esta Construction to 7 years in prison, lawyer Dagir Khasavov has told RAPSI.

The defendants in the case are ex-officer Vlad Novikov and officer still in-service Karen Krayukhin.

Earlier, investigators have registered a 10-million-ruble (about $170,000) civil lawsuit filed by a victim in this case, Turkish construction firm Esta Construction’s lawyer Valerian Kochergin. He seeks 5 million rubles in compensation for property damage and 5 million rubles in moral damages.

As previously reported, Novikov and Krayukhin have been arrested on suspicion of taking a bribe from the Turkish construction firm Esta Construction. Later, they have been charged with a large-scale fraud against foreign legal entity.
Investigators claim that Esta Construction has been fined over 37 million rubles ($626,000) for violation of migration legislation. The company’s lawyer in order to avoid payment of the fine asked the defendants for help in the termination of the case for 5 million rubles ($85,000).

Lawyer Dagir Khasavov, however, told RAPSI that the money was transferred from Kochergin to Krayukhin as return of a debt.

Esta Construction is a contracting company established by Bahattin Demirbilek in Moscow in 2006 and operating as a general contractor and project designer in international construction market, the firm’s website says.